I Live In Big Wind Country

Kansas is windy, often, and not just a little. When spring comes, the big wind comes with it, and yesterday was a vivid illustration with gusts up to 90 mph in some parts of the state and ordinary old 45 mph gusts regularly around it. It’s hard not to tilt a little when you walk, and when we did balance poses in yoga — in a room in the country, second story, windows all around — it was hard not to fall over (but then it’s often hard not for me to fall over).

Yesterday, semi-trucks overturned on the turnpike, mailboxes left home, our bird feeder flew the coop, and the top of a hard-plastic child playhouse unfurled itself. It was the kind of wind that made me and everyone around me feel a little crazy, off-balance, agitated, confused and overwhelmed.

It reminds me of a good wind story too — and in Kansas, many of the good weather stories (and most of the good stories do involve weather) are obviously wind-related. When Ken, my husband, was but a lad, his family had a mean attack rooster named Chip-Chip, who attacked (using his nasty spurs) everyone but Ken’s grandpa, who had basically trained him to be a the rooster equivalent of Cruella DeVille. One day a tornado, with accompanying big winds, came to the area, and Chip-Chip mysteriously disappeared. Days later, his wasted body was found a few miles away. When humans didn’t, out of decency, exact revenge from Chip-Chip, the wind did.

So now the wind has settled down, and it’s good to be back in the saddle, crossed over to spring with the grasses seeminly scribbled bright green and the trees budding. Yesterday’s big wind is today’s sky all bright baby blue and pristine white clouds, all the debris blasted free from our minds.

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